Pauline Chan and Keith Thomas

PAULINE (BA 1987 TRIN): I first laid eyes on Keith during a rehearsal for The Bob, Victoria College’s theatre review. He was playing a character named “Slime,” but he didn’t live up to the name. We became friends. After graduation, he worked overseas and then came back to Toronto. He saw me on TV and called to say hi. I had tickets to a contemporary ballet, and he told me he loves dance. I was immediately suspicious about a man so eager to attend the ballet but I invited him anyway! That night, I was late arriving and so we barely talked for the first few hours of what turned out to be our first date. But once we did start talking, we had a great time, and I was reminded that he was always a really nice guy. We have similar values and senses of humour. Which isn’t to say that we don’t have squabbles – but differing tastes in food and men’s ties are minor things.

KEITH (BASc 1987, MA 1989): We’ve been together for 20 years, and married for 15. Some people date first and are friends second, but I really, really liked Pauline first. She has a great way of dealing with people and there are so many ways we just clicked. We’re both kind of nerds. We both love The X-Files and Star Trek. We both grew up in Toronto, and even though her background is Filipino-Chinese and mine is Irish, there were a lot of similarities in the way we grew up. Our parents had the same dining room table, the same dishware, even the same cookie jar. We really enjoy travelling together, and our most memorable trip was our honeymoon in South Africa, shortly after the end of apartheid. We toured Robbin Island, visited the ghettos in Soweto and rode on ostriches. It was tough during the years when we worked different schedules, but we now have the evenings for quality time with our two kids.